


Tis the Season

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, Christmas Shopping, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 03:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12902658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry. ;)Day 3 of the 25 Days of BAU Christmas. <3





	Tis the Season

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” 

Garcia was in her element - standing in the doorway of a mall with a plethora of stores before just waiting for her hard-earned cash. She had a gift idea in mind for almost everyone, and would undoubtedly end up buying way more than she intended. This was the real start of the Christmas season in her eyes.

Hotch was in; he needed to get something for Haley and Jack. Rossi loved the holidays, because honestly he had so much money he didn’t know what to do with it - spending it on others was what he loved. JJ was totally in, even though she was a little tired, having had Henry only a few months earlier. 

Emily, Spencer and Morgan however? They had to be dragged, or rather guilted by Garcia. “This is wonderful?” Morgan asked. All he could see for what felt like miles was rabid customers pushing each other out of the way for the best deal.

“Tis the season!” She scolded.

Spencer on the other hand looked panicked. So. Many. People. “Oh man, Garcia, why did you make me come here?”

“Because I love you and I want to go shopping with everyone in the family. You’re family. You’re my little brother. So you have to be here.” 

Spencer took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Where to first?” He wanted to be here for Garcia, but the sooner this was over with the better; he hated crowds.

“If we had any sense whatsoever, it would be toward the computer, in our pajamas, with a glass of wine in hand,” Emily said. Online shopping all the way for her. 

JJ stopped in her tracks. “Em, it’s 9:30 in the morning. Wine?”

Emily and Rossi spoke simultaneously. “Yea.”

“What of it?” Emily added with a smile. “It’s a Christmas tradition.”

“Well, this is the new one,” Garcia laughed. 

They’d entered through a department store and immediately Garcia’s eyes fell on a pair of shoes - for herself. “Aren’t you supposed to be shopping for other people?” Morgan asked with a raised eyebrow.

“But look at them!” She reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled away from the beautiful heels and eventually they all found themselves wandering around the department store within relative closeness to each other.

JJ and Garcia were in men’s section, presumably looking for something for Hotch, considering they were surrounded by ties. Emily and Spencer were wandering around aimlessly trying to see if anything struck them, and Morgan, Rossi and Hotch were in the ladies’ shoes section; while Garcia wasn’t looking he grabbed the heels she’d been eyeing and bought them for her. They were a pretty penny, but they were for his Pretty Penny, his babygirl, so nothing was too much for her. She couldn’t have enough shoes, so Rossi and Hotch picked out some heels for her too (with Morgan’s recommendation of course). 

After wandering around for a little while, Emily and Spencer realized that the rest of the team had left the department store, but something finally caught Spencer’s eye. “What about this for JJ?” He asked. It was a cross between a trench coat and a peacoat with military-style buttons in a crisp white. It looked very JJ. 

“That’s perfect!” Emily smiled. “How about we shop together? You get a coat, I get a bag. Like our gifts go together.”

“Sounds good.” 

Emily picked up a beautiful red leather bag to go with the coat Spencer was getting her, and because she wasn’t at home getting deals, she scoured her phone for coupons, bringing $150 bag down to 80. It took them nearly three hours, excluding a lunch break, but eventually, the two of them had purchased their gifts for everyone. “You wanna sit around and people watch for a while? While we wait for everyone else?” Emily asked.

“Yes, please,” he smiled, sitting down on a nearby bench. “And then get me the hell out of here.”

Meanwhile, Rossi, Hotch and Morgan finished buying their gifts for the ladies, Haley included, pretty quickly. In their bags were a range of jackets and bags and jewelry. Hotch kept the tasteful diamond necklace he’d bought for Haley right in his inside jacket pocket.

Rossi sneakily bought a pair of Timberlands that Morgan had been eyeing after texting Garcia to double-check his shoe size. Buying for each other was going to be difficult. All of them felt they had everything they needed or wanted, other than things that couldn’t be bought.

Then they came across a bookstore. “Spencer,” They all said.

He was the easiest one. All Spencer needed was a cup of coffee and a good book and he was good to go for hours, or in his case minutes.

For another hour or so, they scrounged around for something to get each other, coming up with a few surprises that left them all happy with their purchases.

Now all they had to do was find out where the hell everyone else had gone.

“How much coffee does he drink?” Garcia asked, watching as put a ton of different products into her basket. They’d walked into Whole Latte Love, a store specifically for coffee.

Spencer couldn’t drink enough. It was the perfect gift. In addition to the wine she bought for Emily, the bourbon for Rossi and the tea for Hotch (who knew Hotch was a tea man?), this Christmas was turning out to be a very drink-heavy won. “I just got a text from Chocolate Thunder. He, Rossi and Hotch got him books, so why don’t you and I just buy him all types of coffee and go in together for him.”

It took them nearly an hour to decide on coffees. An Ethiopian, Brazilian, Columbian, Guatemalan, an espresso mix and a combined 150 dollars later, the genius was all taken care of. Between the books and coffee, he’d be set for…about a week.

“Okay,” JJ said. Her mom brain was taking over. Everything was in a list now. Including gifts. “We have Spencer, we have each other, we both have Rossi and Morgan. You have Hotch, I still need something for him. And we both need Emily.”

Garcia nodded and scanned around the nearby stores. “That!” Across the way was an outfit that Emily would rock. “It looks like a cashmere sweater in red and leather pants.”

“That’s perfect,” JJ replied with a smile. “But what about something for me to get her?”

She scanned the far reaches of her brain for an idea as Garcia made her purchases. “What about those riding boots she was looking at?” She blurted out, out of nowhere. A few months earlier, Emily had mentioned wanting riding boots, having had a similar pair in her teen years. 

The two quickly exchanged glances before barreling through people to Macy’s to find the boots she’d been looking at. “Please have her size, please have her size, please have her size,” JJ repeated over and over again while she and Garcia waited for the employee to come back from the back room. When the woman emerged with a big box, JJ cried out. “Yes!”

Finally, with the purchase of a gift card to Haley and Hotch’s favorite restaurant, JJ was done. “Now where did we lose everyone?”

After nearly half a day in the crowded, sweaty mall, everyone bought everyone everything and it was finally time to leave. Spencer had about had it. The crowd was putting his senses on overload, though he did have more fun shopping with Emily than he’d expected to. 

“I just texted everyone and told them to meet us here so you don’t have to go through the crowds anymore,” Emily said, looking up from her phone and into the sea of people before them. 

Spencer gave her a smile, thankful for the gesture. She hadn’t joined the team that long ago, but she seemed to understand him rather quickly, taking his eccentricities for normal instead of seeing them as something to be pitied. “Much appreciated.”

It took about 15 minutes for everyone to find their way to the two of them. Thirteen minutes and 47 seconds to be exact. “So Garcia,” Spencer laughed. “Weren’t we all supposed to go shopping together?”

“I got distracted,” she said, smiling with teeth bared. “Everyone done? We all have fun?” She looked toward Spencer and Emily again. “For two people I had to drag out of the house, you seem like you had a good time.”

“I did,” Spencer said reluctantly, “But now I need out.”

Emily grabbed her phone to check the time. It was just after 2 PM. “How about we all head back to Rossi’s place and have some wine?”

“Again with the wine?” Morgan laughed.

“Yes, it’s after 2! Stop judging me!”


End file.
